According to Investopedia, the field of business intelligence (BI) encompasses “the procedural and technical infrastructure that collects, stores, and analyses the data produced by a company’s activities.” Stressing its centrality, a recent CIO article describes it as: “strategies and technologies for analysing business information and transforming it into actionable insights that inform strategic and tactical business decisions”.
Finally, Gartner’s glossary adds a procedural aspect: “business intelligence (ABI) is an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance.”
Why Business Intelligence Important?
From keeping tabs on your competitors, to spotting new opportunities, to shaping the perfect pricing strategy, BI conveys a competitive edge. But BI is only as good as the data it draws upon.
There’s an arms race taking place in the big data arena. AI-empowered insights derived from vast pools of data are shaping the way modern companies do business in every aspect. A 2023 Dataprot report revealed that the rate of BI adoption globally is 26%, meaning that for every 100 employees, 26 regularly use BI tools.
However, modernization is required for a company to make best use of the BI tools on today’s data analytic marketplace. BI Modernization usually takes the form of optimizing data sources to streamline the BI process. This will typically include:
- Unifying data sources, so that they are centralized within a dedicated division.
- Creating validation processes to ensure data quality is sufficient.
- Adopting a data-led approach to research, in partnership with human expertise.
- Automating data reporting for all relevant departments.
- Updating the data architecture and infrastructure, including security and storage.
For example, Evalueserve undertook all of the above for a Saudi Bank, including migrating its data capture to a Teradata warehouse and automating key procedures (increasing speed of reporting by up to 60%).
the Current State of Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence faces certain challenges in the age of Big Data, including validation, processing, storage and scaling, as ever-larger reservoirs of information are created.
Business Intelligence modernization mitigates these difficulties but requires a thorough approach and an experienced analysis partner to achieve an effective transition.
The Need for Business Intelligence Modernization
The latest BI solutions simply won’t work in an outmoded data workflow. Therefore, modernization is an essential part of upgrading your BI department or tools. Part of the process is achieving buy in across the organization.
Or as Evalueserve’s EVP of Analytics Swapnil Srivastava puts it, “Business Leaders should do a thorough due diligence before investing in a new technology for their organization, emphasize the importance of that technology (enough times) tying it to their KPIs and Organization’s North Star, and communicating clearly the expectations and desired outcome (better decision making, improved results – $, % improvement in certain metrics, etc.)”
In other words, it’s a question of effectively communicating the strategic aim of investing in BI modernization, and the value it can deliver.
AI and Business Modernization
Fortunately, AI is proving invaluable in this process of streamlining modern BI practices. Machine learning, the core function of AI, is the secret engine powering the data revolution. Analytic AI tools can be trained on pools of highly specialised data, then set to work on new datasets.
Because they have been finely tuned for just the right inputs, these AI-empowered tools can recognise patterns. They can make accurate predictions, based upon this superhuman pattern recognition ability, and can deliver insights to direct future strategy and empower decision-making.
Evalueserve’s approach is never to allow the AI to work alone on such problems. We pair our specialist AI analytics with human domain expertise, whether it’s in insurance risk assessment, international finance, or pharmaceutical product development.
Our experts know exactly how to train, prompt, and direct our solutions to deliver the unique insights each industry requires.
Benefits of Business Intelligence Modernization
Let’s recap the major advantages that adopting our BI modernization approach conveys:
- Enhanced decision-making, backed up by large volumes of evidence.
- Improved efficiency, by adopting automated analysis and reporting.
- Better quality insights, which are more readily actionable.
- Competitive advantage, garnering insights that allow agile strategic pivots.
Evalueserve’s BI offerings have been internationally recognized, including a listing in Forrester’s AI Service Providers Landscape Report. Announced Swapnil Srivastava, “We are very pleased that Forrester has recognized our domain-specific AI and data analytics solutions. Fortune 1000 companies around the globe trust our ability to identify the correct use cases and turn data into actionable insights that help them make decisions, strengthen processes, and deliver ROI.”
Our partners in BI modernization have included real estate firms, manufacturing plants, energy and chemical industries and healthcare companies. There really is no realm in which Business Intelligence (in the augmented format we employ) can’t deliver a competitive edge.
The Journey Towards Business Intelligence Modernization
To address BI modernization, companies need to adopt a step-by step approach. In brief, this would include:
- Achieving buy-in and agreeing a budget and timescale.
- Identifying project ownership and external partners.
- Identifying bottlenecks and pain points, then redesigning the BI architecture.
- Choosing which BI solutions to incorporate, where and how.
- Deciding on KPIs and goals for the desired outcome.
- Training users on any BI solutions to be applied.
- Deployment and ongoing monitoring of effectiveness.
Evalueserve can assist with steps two to seven, fortunately. Bring us on board as early as possible in your BI modernization journey, so that we can have our domain experts collaborate with your in-house specialists to properly optimize and align your BI strategy.
Begin Your Business Intelligence Modernization Journey today
Every company that hopes to persist in a competitive marketplace will need to come to terms with the necessity of BI modernization. On the plus side, it brings gains in terms of insights, strategy, decision-making, efficiency, and revenue. Negatively speaking, if you don’t do it, you can guarantee your main competitors will.
So, start the process today with a consultation with Evalueserve’s BI modernization team.
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